- Martin Marietta to buy Lhoist North America in $13.5 billion deal
Source: Reuters
“Martin Marietta Materials said on Monday it would merge with limestone supplier Lhoist North America in a cash-and-stock deal worth $13.5 billion, as the building materials firm looks to tap growing demand for lime products. Shares of the Raleigh, North Carolina-based company were down 5% in morning trade. … Lhoist North America makes hi-calcium lime, dolomitic lime and industrial mineral products used in domestic steel manufacturing, infrastructure and heavy non-residential construction across North America.” (06/29/26)
- Poland: Regime orders Swedish submarines to bulk up navy
Source: Deutsche Welle [German state media]
“Poland and Sweden on Monday signed a €4.2 billion ($4.8 billion) arms deal at a ceremony in the Polish seaport of Gdynia on the Baltic Sea. In the deal, Poland’s State Treasury Armaments Agency ordered the purchase of three new submarines from Swedish aerospace and defense contractor Saab. A Monday press release from Saab outlined the sale, saying the company would begin delivering the vessels in 2030, with the final sub delivered in 2038. … Currently, Poland only has one submarine, an aging Russian vessel. To bridge the gap between now and 2030, Warsaw’s navy will be given use of the Swedish submarine HMS Södermanland.” (06/29/26)
https://www.dw.com/en/poland-orders-swedish-submarines-to-bulk-up-navy/a-77758193
- SCOTUS upholds grace period for late-arriving mail-in ballots
Source: Axios
“The Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law Monday that allows mailed ballots to be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and received within five business days. The justices’ ruling could protect voting in states with similar laws this November and is sure to feed President Trump’s frequent criticism of voting by mail. The Trump administration backed the law’s challengers, arguing that allowing states to count ballots received after Election Day undermines the integrity of federal elections. The court ruled 5-4 to uphold Mississippi’s law, with Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissenting.” (06/29/26)
- DC Regime Will Pay $50,000 to Man Abducted While Protesting Guard Patrol With ‘Star Wars’ Song
Source: US News & World Report
“The District of Columbia has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a resident who [correctly] accused police officers of illegally [abducting] him for following an Ohio National Guard patrol while playing Darth Vader’s theme song from ‘Star Wars’ on his cellphone, according to a document released Monday. The plaintiff, Sam O’Hara, sued the district, four Metropolitan Police Department officers and a guard member from Ohio over what he says was his act of protest against President Donald Trump’s federal law enforcement surge in Washington, D.C. … O’Hara’s settlement with the district doesn’t resolve his related claims against an Ohio National Guard member, Sgt. Devon Beck, who has asked a judge to dismiss O’Hara’s claims against him.” (06/29/26)
- Spain: Nearly one million “unauthorized” migrants apply for “legal” status
Source: Politico
“Spain’s unauthorized migrant population is rushing to apply for legal status under the country’s expansive regularization program before Tuesday’s deadline. Although the Spanish government originally expected around 500,000 people to apply for the program — which provides renewable residence permits to all applicants who have been living in Spain for at least five months and have a clean criminal record — over 900,000 had applied by mid-June, according to Spanish authorities.” (06/29/26)
https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-migration-regularization-eu-tightens-screws/
- The KIDS Act would put Washington in charge of how we can communicate online
Source: Expression
by Carolyn Iodice & John Coleman“For decades, Americans have enjoyed broad freedom to build tools to communicate with each other on the internet. From the smallest message board to the biggest social media platform, the First Amendment protects our right to freely design and use platforms to talk and share content with each other online. The government can go after wrongdoers that use online platforms for illegal activity, but it does not get to decide how a platform is designed and operated in the first place. The KIDS Act would fundamentally overturn this status quo by allowing the government to decide how platforms can be built and imposing restrictions that will censor the speech of adults and minors alike.” (06/29/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/the-kids-act-would-put-washington
- Über Socialist: ChatGPT on Economic Freedom in Nazi Germany
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“Qualitative history lends itself to confirmation bias. Even when you have some quantitative measures of economic policy, it’s easy to put extra weight on the measures that deliver the answer you’re looking for. I’m not immune to motivated reasoning. I loathe and despise both socialism and Nazism, so it’s pleasant for me to equate them. I freely admit it. What to do? I could spend a year reading more about this topic. I could even spend a few years getting to the research frontier so I could credibly publish on the question, ‘How socialist was Germany under National Socialism?’ But while this is a fascinating issue, the opportunity cost of seriously deepening my understanding is just too high. Or to be more precise, the opportunity cost was too high. AI has drastically slashed the costs of quantification — and simultaneously drastically increased the credibility of quick quantification.” (06/29/26)
- Is Taiwan’s President Playing With Political Fire?
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ted Galen Carpenter“Taiwan President Lai Ching-te (William Lai) appears to be missing signs from multiple sources that he lacks both international and domestic support for pursuing a more assertive policy regarding the island’s de facto independence. Taipei heavily depends on two protectors, Japan and the United States, for firm political support against Beijing’s periodic bullying tactics. In the event of a military crisis, Taiwan would be even more reliant on those two powers for armed defense. However, Tokyo and Washington seem to be moving in opposite directions with respect to their longstanding, albeit informal, security commitment to Taipei.” (06/29/26)
- The Fallacy of Economic Predicting
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Angelo Monaco“I recently submitted an article to The Future of Freedom Foundation that predicted a recession at the end of 2026. It was rejected because FFF’s editor, Jacob Hornberger, said ‘One of my beefs with economists is that they love making predictions but most often the predictions don’t pan out.’ I should have been incensed with the fact that after my decades of education and training as an economist and careful research and review of historical and present-day data, my forecast could be so easily dismissed. However, I remained basically un-phased. I suppose the reason I did not get angry is because I knew that he was right. Economists’ predictions are often wrong and any of their predictions that involve a glimpse too far into the future are statistically very close to being always wrong.” (06/29/26)
https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/the-fallacy-of-economic-predicting/
- The Poisonous Fruit Has Ripened
Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders“Recent democratic socialist victories in New York are a harbinger. Like an invasive species sent from the unproductive activist class, they have infiltrated politics at the highest levels of government. As if the creatures who have been ruling us weren’t bad enough, a fifty-year period of permitting socialist activists to take comfort in the academy is now yielding poisonous fruit. And as we celebrate the 250th birthday of America, the democratic socialists openly wipe their asses with America’s founding documents. That is, until election season, when the wolves don sheep’s clothing.” [editor’s note: The difference between a “democratic socialist” and a “mainstream American politician circa 2026” is that the former openly admit they’re socialists – TLK] (06/29/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-poisonous-fruit-has-ripened/comments
- I went to Trump’s Great American State Fair so you don’t have to
Source: The New Republic
by Malcolm Ferguson“The opening weekend of the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., was, to put it simply, miserable. It was extremely muggy, with rain pouring down seemingly every hour. A child rolled around in the grass, crying and screaming, ‘I. WANT. TO. GO. HOME!!!’ Creed’s ‘Higher’ blared over the loudspeakers, and a sparse crowd milled about the various exhibitions. The bare-bones setup (flimsy, fake two-dimensional columns that looked like something Wile E. Coyote would run into while chasing the Road Runner) left much to be desired, as America’s 250th anniversary was celebrated with kitsch and ennui rather than grandeur and appreciation. More than anything, the event lacked energy—and people. There wasn’t any line or wait to get in. The vibe was more conference-like than celebratory, and the state exhibits varied wildly in effort and presentation.” (06/29/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/212455/trump-great-american-state-fair-review
- On July 4, Will You be Celebrating the Founders or the Status Quo?
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by George Ford Smith“Ideologically, Americans went from Blackstone, to Coke, to Otis, to Paine, to the Declaration, to winning the war for independence (the latter two with Paine’s help). The undoing of this unprecedented victory for human liberty began in 1786 with the exploitation of a government-caused revolt called Shay’s Rebellion. Liberty has taken the hit ever since.” (06/29/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/july-4-will-you-be-celebrating-founders-or-status-quo
- Trump wanted to break the system. The system is breaking him instead.
Source: Washington Post
by Ramesh Ponnuru“Trump acted as though voters chose him in 2024 because they loved everything about him, rather than because they hated inflation. Since winning, he has taken a few steps that place upward pressure on prices — warring with Iran, imposing tariffs, trying to push interest rates down by intimidating the Federal Reserve — and done little to foster the impression that he cares about the public’s top concern. In Trump’s popularity decline, we are also seeing the interaction of our constitutional system and a president who is neither interested in nor adept at working through it. A determined president can make the Justice Department issue frivolous indictments. He can’t make the courts respect them.” (06/29/26)
- They’re Still Pushing The Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“Israel is still pushing for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They keep trying different angles and rebranding it under different names, but the end goal has remained the same since October 2023: the removal of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. From the early months of the Gaza holocaust, Israel apologists had been referring to the ethnic cleansing agenda as a plan for the ‘voluntary migration’ of Gaza’s inhabitants. This framing conveniently ignored the fact that you cannot destroy a populated area and deliberately make it uninhabitable and then say the inhabitants of that area are leaving ‘voluntarily’. According to a Haaretz report that was published last week, Israel’s new National Security Council chief convened a meeting of top national security officials to discuss the issue of ‘encouraging the voluntary emigration’ of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.” (06/29/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/06/29/theyre-still-pushing-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-gaza/
- For a Liberal Pessimism
Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Kahan“There are good reasons for liberal pessimism. Every liberal knows the sad arc of world history since 1992, the sudden vertiginous rise of liberal hopes, the long, bumpy descent into the grim present and its populism. There are, however, older and deeper reasons for liberal pessimism which are less evident. Liberals have been far too optimistic for far too long, leaving them ripe for disappointment. In particular, they have been too optimistic about the political fruits of education and the political consequences of a growing middle class. Properly understood, however, a more pessimistic view of the world might be grounds for optimism.” (06/29/26)
- America’s Universal Aspiration at 250
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup“A couple of weeks ago, at the dedication ceremony for his presidential library, Barack Obama made a speech in which he addressed the Founding Fathers. ‘In forming our union,’ he said, ‘the founders fell terribly short of the Declaration’s promise, leaving slavery intact, allowing states to restrict the franchise to white men who owned property.’ Fortunately for us, however, ‘in drafting a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, they did have the foresight, the genius, to provide us with a framework that allows each generation to make our union more perfect.’ Needless to say, not everyone was thrilled with Obama’s comments. Conservatives on Twitter/X thought he had insulted or taken a ‘swipe’ at the Founders. Fox News said that he had ‘knocked’ them, noting the supposed irony of the statement coming ‘just days before America celebrates its 250th anniversary on the 4th of July.'” (06/29/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/29/americas-universal-aspiration-at-250/
- The Fiat Money Maestro
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul“Ironically, a good explanation of why fiat currency is the enemy of liberty and gold is the friend of liberty is provided in ‘Gold and Economic Freedom’ written by none other than Alan Greenspan and published in Ayn Rand’s The Objectivist newsletter in 1966. In that essay Greenspan wrote ‘Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the ‘hidden’ confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights.’ Those seeking the path to prosperity and liberty should embrace the wisdom Greenspan showed before he became the fiat money maestro.” (06/29/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/the-fiat-money-maestro
- Mutual Aid and the Governance We Are Already Practicing
Source: Common Dreams
by Supriya Lopez Pillai & Nwamaka Agbo“Governance is how we hold power responsibly and equitably. Government is just one way we organize it—and what is abundantly clear is that good governance is not always done by a government. Since congressional Republicans passed the ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, 3.5 million people have lost benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). That includes more than 800,000 children who are now at risk of going hungry. It is just one of many ways in which the current administration has either actively harmed or abdicated responsibility for families and communities. This is a precarious moment, but it is not a moment for despair. In communities long abandoned by the public sector, mutual aid networks have emerged as models of resilience that show how people can govern effectively when love and care, rather than hate and scarcity, are placed at the center of how community members care for each other.” (06/29/26)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/mutual-aid-and-governance
- The Kill Western Civilization Caucus
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“November’s General Election being a mere formality in the Big Apple, the trio will undoubtedly be joining the next Congress. All three — State Assemblywoman Claire Valdez (NY-7), former City Comptroller Brad Lander (NY-10), and professional ‘left-wing activist’ Darializa Avila Chevalier (NY-13) — were endorsed and assisted by Mayor Zohran Mamdani. They’ll be just three out of 435 members of Congress, while the mayor is in a position to do more harm. Still, sprinkling a few Stalinists into Washington’s brew won’t help. Darializa Avila Chevalier worries me the most. Before launching her political campaign, CNN reports that she deleted ‘thousands of posts and reposts expressing support for abolishing police, prisons and borders, as well as seizing private property and nationalizing major industries and calling into question Israel’s right to exist.'” (06/29/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/29/kill-western-civilization/
- Critics of lifting Iran sanctions can’t offer a viable alternative
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Sina Toossi“Washington’s Iran hawks — including some Democrats and former Biden administration officials — are denouncing the Trump administration for agreeing to upfront sanctions relief and other confidence-building measures in its preliminary deal, or memorandum of understanding (MoU), with Tehran. But their criticism leaves one obvious question unanswered: what is their alternative other than another round of war? Trump did not arrive at these concessions because he suddenly discovered the virtues of diplomacy. He tried war first. … It is precisely because the military option failed to force political change in Iran — and because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz imposed mounting costs on Washington and the global economy — that the Trump administration was left with little choice but to return to serious diplomacy. And serious diplomacy was always going to require upfront concessions from the United States.” (06/29/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-sanctions-relief-critics/
- Trump v. Cook Won’t Settle the Fed’s Independence Problem
Source: The Daily Economy
by Nicolas Cachanosky“Political pressure has made it harder to distinguish sound monetary policy from strategic posturing. Congress, not SCOTUS, is empowered to change that.” (06/29/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/trump-v-cook-wont-settle-the-feds-independence-problem/
- Reason Interview: Marjorie Taylor Greene
Source: Reason
“Marjorie Taylor Greene discusses the future of the Republican Party, the resurgence of democratic socialism, and why the political establishment always wins.” (06/29/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/06/29/marjorie-taylor-greene-youre-not-being-represented/
- Rising, 06/29/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a group of protesters harassing California State Senator Scott Wiener over his stance on Gaza.” (06/29/26)
- Caleb O. Brown discusses tax reform and solutions to Kentucky’s housing crisis on Kentucky’s Voice
Source: Bluegrass Institute
“Tom Fawbush of Kentucky’s Voice interviews Caleb O. Brown on housing reform, tax reform, and educational freedom in Kentucky.” (06/29/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 06/29/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“The Most Unpopular War In History.” (06/29/26)
- Sidewalk Civics, 06/29/26
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
“Should Supreme Court Justices Have Term Limits?” (06/29/26)